Cheap Spills

By JAY COCKS

THE NIGHT CALLER Directed and Written by HENRI VERNEUIL

Much of The Night Caller concerns a Paris police search for a man who makes obscene telephone calls. This guy is not your garden-variety breather. He is a murderer who starts by ringing up women and ends by doing them in. As if this were not plot enough, the detective in charge of the investigation (Jean-Paul Belmondo) also devotes a great deal of time to tracking down a bank robber who has eluded him for months and become a personal nemesis. Belmondo's pursuit, which is elaborate and unlikely, finds him at one point hugging the roof of a speeding Metro train as he tries to get at the bad guy trapped in the car below. It is a chase out of The French Connection or The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, so it is difficult to determine whether the scene is too shopworn to be effective or just too stupid.

The Night Caller is one of those French films made in envious and inadvertently silly imitation of American crime melodramas. Director Henri Verneuil (The Sicilian Clan) works hard to duplicate every cliche of the genre, from a car chase right down to a breathless pursuit up stairs that wind like a snail's shell.

Throughout the nitwit action, one notes what might be called a typically Gallic touch: even in the furthest extremities, Belmondo remains modishly tailored. This causes problems. Tapered trousers make it difficult to get a leg up, and boots with high heels cause any flatfoot to slip and slide on the fabled Paris roofs. It could be said that the only genuine suspense The Night Caller has to offer is whether the leading man will split his pants.

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